Madwoman at Hogan's Creek

In my late twenties, while at graduate school in Fort Collins, CO I read a lot of books like Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Harper’s Magazine Press, 1974). Anne writes prose on her experiences living near Tinker Creek to speak about the human condition, and our relationship with the Divine. The book is brilliant in that through writing about what on the surface seem to be observations of the mundane she transports the reader to a mystical dimension. It won a Pulitzer Prize. I had forgotten about the book until this past weekend as I wielded a brand new Stihl chainsaw all about our place here. I cracked myself up thinking about Annie’s gentile observations gathered from blithe hours spent gazing at the meandering creek or spying on busy blue birds contrasted to my own observations made while inhaling gas fumes, deafened by the roar of a chainsaw, and fighting off warrior wild rose bushes. Laughing, I thought “Madwoman at Hogan’s Creek” is my title. There is a creek, called Hogan’s Creek, but instead of pilgrim at that moment it felt more like madwoman.

I hadn’t set out to spend the day “logging,” but I found myself running an errand to our authentic, local hardware store for my brother’s construction project of the day. As I waited to pay for the drill bit, an affable black man was being served in his search for a bag of lump coal. Mr. Southern, the store owner, took him in the back to see what they had in stock. I was left to browse. My attention was immediately caught by a wall of shiny new chainsaws. I had been thinking about all the trees and bushes that needed to be cut up or back around our farm. Being the impulsive buyer that I am, by the time the man was on his way out the door with a 50 pound bag of flake coal to as he said over his shoulder “slow cook me some fat back and pinto beans tonight,” I was intent on a chainsaw.

So there I was a mere two hours later literally at battle. I could see the barn that I wanted to save and the old garage that still holds my Papa’s old cook stove but I couldn’t just walk up and begin to enjoy these old structures or even work on them. They are barricaded by black berry, honeysuckle, and wild rose vines and hundreds of hard wood saplings mingled with decadent grasses and pine needles. They have been left to their own devices for many years. I can’t save what is inside until I kill this wild, out of control life around it, encasing it. I didn’t see it that way at first. I began with a little cut here and there, but quickly found that these sentinels fight back. Saplings slapped my face, briars hung in the flesh of my ankle, coat, hair, nose – any place they could get a hold. I had to get aggressive, nearly mad in order to go after it with the ferocity needed to win, to not shrink back when slapped in the face or pierced in the leg, to blink through the sweat running in my eyes.

I finally stopped, winded and wounded and thought “it really is a battle on many fronts whether for this old barn or for the kind of life I want to live.” I know many hate the battle metaphor, yet I can’t deny that there is an inertia inherent in life that constantly pulls all living things toward decay, disrepair, disorder even sloth. In forestry it is called succession – “a directional non-seasonal cumulative change in the types of plant species that occupy a given area through time. It involves the processes of colonization, establishment, and extinction which act on the participating plant species.”

It takes discipline, sacrifice, hard work, initiative, resourcefulness, will, vision, intention, hope and yes often power tools to keep things on course. If I want that barn back, I have to be more tenacious than those damn black berry bushes. It is hard though and why we are told the gate is narrow and lonely or that private victories always precede public victories. I guess it comes down to how badly I want it. We’ll see. I ended the day with dulled blades and an empty gas tank.

Why Celebrate

I had an important birthday this week – turned 40. Celebrating events or milestones has always been high on my list of priorities. If you have ever told me your birth date, chances are good that you’ll get a card or call from me to commemorate the day. Many people are shy about birthdays or even down right self-deprecating. They don’t want to make a big deal, don’t tell anyone. I even know people who act as if a birthday is a sad thing. Not kids though. Kids are all about birthdays. “Bring it on,” they say. Something happens, as we get older, birthdays are no longer something to look forward to or get excited about and plan. People like me that still want to get excited about birthdays are somewhat shamed into dampening it down. People will humor you with a happy birthday wish but it’s often done with a sense of obligation and just a little bit of embarrassment for you. Seems like aging makes many of us dampen down our enthusiasm for about most things. Yet, isn’t it the enthusiastic people that you want to be with, even if you are a little embarrassed for them?

Documentation of birthday celebrations goes at least as far back as 4,000 years ago to Pharaoh, King of Egypt. In pagan cultures, birthdays were considered a time when a door opened for “bad spirits” to harm you. They believed that the only way to keep the bad spirits at bay was to be surrounded by well wishing friends and family. Warner Communications purchased the Happy Birthday song copyright in 1989 for $22 million. It is touted as one of the most recognizable tunes worldwide. Two sisters wrote it in 1893 from Louisville, Kentucky, Patty, and Mildred Hill.

Yanki Tauber, editor of Chabad an on-line Jewish magazine, waxes eloquently on birthdays by saying that every individual human being has a soul--a distinct spiritual identity, and a distinct mission in life. This is what came into being on your birthday. I like the idea that on birthdays we acknowledge that we in fact do have an individual mission and check in on our progress. However, it’s nothing that lofty that brought home why we deep down do want to celebrate birthdays, weddings, graduations, and all other significant life events. John Maxwell said it while interviewing on the book he co-authored with Les Parrot called 25 Ways to Win With People – it’s about making memories with people. If you look back on the highlights of life, it’s always more than the backdrop. The special people with you made it memorable.

"The illusion that we are separate from one another is an optical delusion of our consciousness." Albert Einstein

Blood Is Life

I gave blood yesterday in a double dose. It took two hours. I got a t-shirt, two free movie passes, a box of juice, a bag of animal crackers and a real good feeling. I got one of those fleeting glimpses of the pay-offs or rewards if you will from shifting my way of life from one of a gambler to an investor. As the gambler, repercussions from bad habits and behaviors didn’t apply to me. As the gambler, I probably wouldn’t live past 30 anyway so who cared. The gambler is about the moment. She wins or loses on the spot. The investor methodically plants seeds, watches his portfolio seemingly languish. But then one day a seed comes up and there’s that pay-off.

It may sound like a “whoop-de-do.” But for me it was a seed sprouted as I watched person after person leaving the blood mobile with all the blood they entered with and then the phlebotomist note how good my blood pressure was and how high my iron was “for a woman my age” and to answer all those questions about life style and disease with unfaltering “No’s.” Just in case you’re planning to go donate, don’t bother if you have traveled to countries with high rates of malaria or SARS or if you have been in jail for 72 hours or more or even had sex with someone that maybe was in contact with someone that had sex with someone that had homosexual relations after 1977 (wonder how Larry Craig would answer that one). They wanted my blood! My blood is good! Blood is life! It hit me, “I am still here and I am thriving, who would have thought it.”
Symbolically, blood carries many emotional, social, and cultural meanings. From a medical stand point, blood is a transmitter of disease or a lifesaver. Our own American flag symbolizes the blood of those lost in the fight for independence with red stripes. There is no substitute for human blood. Yet, in the story that has greatly shaped our culture and has been told and retold for over two centuries the blood of one was substituted for the blood of all.
Blood Facts:
· Blood makes up about 7% of your body's weight.
· An average adult has about 14 to 18 pints of Blood.
· There are four main Blood types: A, B, AB and O.
· In the United States, approximately 16 million units of Blood are said to be collected annually.
· Approximately 40,000 units of Blood are used each day in the United States; every few seconds someone needs Blood.

Meshak's Fate

We got home late last night and by flashlight found Meshak perched comfortably on his limb. He seemed numbed by it all, clocking in close to 30 plus hours high above earth. His friend Sally, our extra large Persian mix, sat watch under the tree for most of the afternoon. When the sun fell low and made the backyard cool, Sally moved on.

When Maggie and I shone the light on him and called out, he didn't even bother to stand up and meow. He just laid there, defeated. The pink irridescent reflection of his eyes made him look a bit crazy. We encouraged him again before heading inside for the night. We discussed options. Maggie felt it best if at first light I would go ahead and climb up to his perch and just get him. I agreed to this knowing that despite my agility and physical fitness it would be flat out stupid to try and climb that tree. She added that if when I reached him there was an altercation resulting in me losing an eye or large amounts of blood, then she would go ahead and call the local fire department. I was to have looked the number up in advance so she would have it handy. We went to bed with this plan. I prayed that Meshak would have a revelation or at least get really hungry.

This morning I stumbled to the coffee pot just as light was making its above the horizon. I saw a familiar silhouette in the kitchen window. I turned the light on above the sink. There he was mouthing words to me: "Let me in, I am starving." Meshak did it. He did the best thing despite his fear. He came down from his limb. From the looks of him now curled up in my chair, he seems pretty much over it.

Out on a Limb

Our Siamese mix - Meshak - went missing last night. This morning - still no Meshak. He is very predictable because like most of us he loves to eat and be warm. At noon when I went outside to take Charlotte - the four month old Puggle - for a walk, I felt a lot of concern for Meshak and I began to call out his name and the obligatory "kitty, kitty, kitty." There it was, his distant and mournful "meowwwww." I followed the sound continuing my calls. I spotted him about 20 feet up one of the 100 plus feet white pines that line our yard, out on a limb.

There are about eight of these trees. My Papa planted them over 50 years ago and without competition from other species they look like some sort of beanstalks to heaven. The massive height and exuberant limbs worry my Mamma to death because a tornado could come and blow one of those trees onto the house leading to immediate death for those inside and unwanted media attention for her. The other background note is that Meshak was born and reared in high desert. He never even saw a tree prior to our move to North Carolina.

All those thick, sturdy limbs at the bottom gave me the same confidence that Meshak probably felt yesterday when he made his way up. From the ground it looks fairly easy to get up and back down. Once you get past about eight feet, the limbs are tightly packed and some are rotten and break off when you grab hold. In addition, the sap is everywhere. So, here I am about ten feet off the ground, my hands lathered in sap, and there's Meshak another ten feet up bawling his head off and wrongly thinking that I am going to rescue him. I wanted to rescue him, but it was not possible for me to take the same path up nor was it possible for me to make him take the steps needed to just get down. His path down is there, but he's convinced himself that if won't work. Maybe he'll fall or the limb will break or maybe if he waits there long enough crying I'll go ahead and climb up there to get him. The end result is that Meshak is wasting valuable time he could use mousing, eating cat food, or sleeping by the heat vent under the kitchen table. Time is not waiting for him. Life is going on around him but he's up there focused on fear and blaming me for not helping him off that limb.

I think what Meshak needs to do is scary and maybe even counterintuitive, but all the same he probably won't get down until he first realizes how much better it is going to be for him on terra firma and then focuses on the individual steps needed to get there. Getting off that limb has become a painful and scary thing in his mind. I can see him from my office window just laying on that limb. Now that I am not out there agitating him with the lure of food or my calls, he has convinced himself that the limb is actually comfortable and maybe even safer than the earth. I can't wait to see what Meshak decides to do. Will he just get down or will he wait for the Volunteer Fire Department?